


staying over.

by pyroallerdyce



Series: captured moments. [14]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Alternate Universe - No Powers, F/M, One Shot Collection, Professor Ben Solo, Short One Shot, Waiters & Waitresses, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:20:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22885426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyroallerdyce/pseuds/pyroallerdyce
Summary: “You look incredibly happy right now,” Poe said, smiling at him.  “Why is that?”Ben took a deep breath and reached for his coffee.  “I don't have to tell you that.”“Yes, you do,” Poe said seriously.  “When are you going to realize that talking about these things is better than holding them inside, whether they are happy things or not?”Ben took a long sip of his coffee before realizing that he had no way out of this one.  “Rey thinks I'm sexy.”Poe grinned.  “That's great news.”or:  Ben heads to the café to see Rey and grade some essays, and some plans are made for the night that Ben wants but is uncomfortable with at the same time.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: captured moments. [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1602691
Comments: 4
Kudos: 68





	staying over.

**Author's Note:**

> just a reminder that you'll be getting a new one shot in this series every Monday and/or Friday. So, here, have today's.
> 
> And as always, if you like what you read, please let me know via a comment or kudos or bookmark so that I know I'm not writing into a void.

Ben wanted to murder his students.

Well, that was a little harsh. 

What he really wanted was to be respected by them, for them to actually apply themselves when it came to what he was teaching, and for them to actually learn something about the literature that he was so passionate about. Instead, he had the most disrespectful group of students he'd ever had, they did minimal amounts of work outside of the lecture hall, and they were quite clearly not learning anything that he was trying to teach them. 

It was beyond frustrating.

He stared at the batch of essays on his table for a few minutes before gathering them up. He didn't want to read any of them, but he had to, and it would give him something to do while Rey was working because he'd just finished the book he was currently reading and he needed to grade these more than starting a new one. Hopefully, they would be better than the last batch, but he wasn't too confident about that happening.

He decided to drive to the café so that he could take Rey home again if he decided to stay, and then he made his way to Jakku. Rey was not in the main room when he walked in, so he just grabbed a menu and headed towards what was becoming his table. He found a reserved sign on it when he got there, and he laughed as he sat down. 

Of course Poe knew that he was coming that night. Of course he did.

He got his essays out and set them on the table, and then he looked up to see that Rey was in the room. Her hair was up in an intricate fashion and she was wearing a much nicer dress than she usually did, which had him slightly confused. She looked over at him and smiled, nodding in his direction before disappearing into the back. Ben plucked the first essay off the top of the stack and started reading. 

A few moments later, Rey was setting a cup of coffee and a glass of water on the table. “Good evening, honey.”

Ben smiled. “Honey?”

Rey's eyes slightly widened. “Do you mind me calling you that? Because if you do, I won't.”

“No, no,” Ben said, shaking his head. “It's fine. I just didn't know we were there.”

“I am,” Rey said, reaching out to fix Ben's hair. “Is it windy? You look disheveled.”

Ben laughed. “It is a little windy, yes. I didn't realize I looked terrible though.”

“You never look terrible,” Rey said, tucking a lock of hair behind his ear. “You look unbelievably sexy at all times.”

Ben felt a blush wash over him. “You don't have to lie to me.”

“I'm not,” Rey said, sighing when she heard someone call out her name. “I'll be back in a little while.”

Rey bent down and kissed Ben softly before walking away, and Ben closed his eyes and soaked in everything Rey had just said. She thought he was sexy. He couldn't see how that could possible. He wasn't sexy. He'd never been sexy.

But maybe he was sexy in her eyes. Maybe that was possible. 

He opened his eyes when he heard the chair in front of him being pulled out, and he saw Poe sitting down across from him. “What is it now?”

“You look incredibly happy right now,” Poe said, smiling at him. “Why is that?”

Ben took a deep breath and reached for his coffee. “I don't have to tell you that.”

“Yes, you do,” Poe said seriously. “When are you going to realize that talking about these things is better than holding them inside, whether they are happy things or not?”

Ben took a long sip of his coffee before realizing that he had no way out of this one. “Rey thinks I'm sexy.”

Poe grinned. “That's great news.”

“How is that great news? She's wrong.”

“Oh, for fuck's sake, Ben,” Poe exclaimed. “If your girlfriend tells you that you're sexy, that means in her eyes you are. Use that to your advantage and take her home with you already.”

Ben nearly choked on his coffee. “What?”

Poe just rolled his eyes. “Take her home with you. Have sex. Enjoy it.”

“I'm not doing that,” Ben said quickly. “There is no way that she'd want to do that.”

“I find that very hard to believe with the way you two are with each other,” Poe said. “I mean, she's always kissing you. Every time she comes over here, she kisses you. Every break she gets, she spends it over here kissing you. If you can't figure out by now that she would have sex with you, then I'm very worried about you.”

Ben swallowed hard. “Stop. Now.”

“I'm telling you the truth.”

“I don't care. Stop.”

Poe shook his head and stood up. “I'll be back later. We need to talk about Zorii again.”

“Talk to Zorii instead of me,” Ben said firmly. “If you want to apologize for being such a fucking bastard, then you need to do it already instead of telling me that you want to do it.”

Poe sighed. “It's not that simple.”

“It really is,” Ben said. “Next time you see her, ask her if the two of you can talk. If she says no, keep asking every time you see her until she finally agrees to listen to what you have to say, and then apologize like it's the only thing you have left to say in your life.”

“I'll think about it if you ask Rey to go home with you tonight.”

“That is fucking ridiculous.”

“Doesn't matter,” Poe said. “That's the deal.”

Ben took a deep breath. “I will think about it. But I don't think it's a good idea.”

“You're an idiot,” Poe said, walking away before Ben could respond.

Ben tried to put what Poe had said out of his mind and reached for the essay on the top of the stack. He read the first two paragraphs, skipped ahead to the concluding paragraph, determined the student had no concept of what they were supposed to have written about, and then turned the paper over and wrote a scathing response on the back of it. He really didn't care if he was getting a reputation for being difficult to please, something he'd overheard while walking on campus. If his students weren't capable of submitting homework that resembled in any way the assignment they were given, then Ben sure as fuck was going to let them know it.

He made it through four essays before what Poe said jumped back to the forefront of his mind, and he reached for his coffee and took three very long sips. His eyes fell upon where Rey was and he took in how good she looked again. The dress was a deep shade of green and it looked entirely too fancy to be worn waitressing. Her hair was up in a style so complicated that Ben was sure that she hadn't done it herself. She looked like she was ready for a date instead of ready to work.

When she came over to see him again, Ben smiled up at her. “Why are you so dressed up today?”

Rey sighed heavily. “I was forced to have lunch with my grandfather earlier at Exegol and he kept me there for so long that I didn't have time to go home and change.”

“Forced?” Ben asked.

“Let's just say that today is the anniversary of something and the two of us always commemorate it with lunch at Exegol and leave it at that for now, okay?” Rey said, reaching out to run her fingers through Ben's hair again. “I'll tell you about it someday, but not in the middle of the café.”

Ben quickly deduced that this was something to do with the thing that Rey didn't like to talk about and he nodded. “Whenever you want to tell me, I'll listen.”

“I know you will,” Rey said softly. “Are you going to stay until close again tonight?”

“I will stay however long you need me to,” Ben replied.

“And if I said I wanted you to stay the night?” Rey asked quietly.

Ben's eyes widened. “What?”

“If it's too soon, just say so. I'll understand.”

Ben took a deep breath and reached for his coffee, taking another long sip. “It's not too soon,” he finally said. “I was contemplating asking you to come home with me sometime.”

Rey smiled at him. “So is staying the night at my place a possibility? Or would it be easier for you if we stayed at yours? I know you've got to get up and go to work tomorrow and I don't have to be here until eleven.”

Ben swallowed hard. “My place would be easier for me.”

“Then is it okay if I spend the night at your place tonight?” Rey asked, letting her fingers trail along the side of his face. “If it's not, just say so. I don't want you to do something you're uncomfortable with.”

“It's fine,” Ben murmured, trying to ignore the nerves that were coursing through him. “Just, um, I'm not ready to have sex with you.”

Rey bent down and kissed him. “That's fine. I wasn't suggesting that anyway. I just want to sleep in the same bed as you.”

Ben nodded shakily. “I can do that.”

Rey kissed him again. “Then that's our plan for the night. Let me go get the coffee so I can refill your cup, and then I'll get your order.”

Ben nodded again, forcing himself to breathe as Rey walked away from him. She was going to spend the night at his apartment. She was going to sleep in the same bed as him. She was going to be there when he woke up in the morning. 

He took another three deep breaths. This was normal. This was the kind of stuff that normal people did in a relationship. They slept in the same bed and were there when they woke up in the morning. This was perfectly normal.

But Ben was not normal and now he was terrified that he was going to screw everything up. 

Rey came back and filled his cup up, asking him what he wanted to order. He ordered his usual without thinking about it, and then she bent and kissed him again before walking away. Ben tried to turn his attention back to the essays but found that he couldn't, the thought that this night could fuck up everything between them stuck in his mind. 

Was the apartment clean enough for this? He had just tidied everything up on Sunday before his mother came over, but maybe it wasn't clean enough for Rey's standards. What were Rey's standards? He was definitely going to need to know that if she was going to start coming over regularly. And what were they going to eat in the morning? Ben had been planning to grab breakfast from one of the fast-food joints on his way to the university. He couldn't do that with Rey. That wasn't good enough. But there wasn't exactly time for anything else with the way that Ben's mornings went, and now that morning would have to also accommodate Rey, and he was suddenly panicked about what was going to happen.

Yeah, he was definitely going to fuck up everything that night. 

He forced himself to concentrate on the essays, smiled and made small talk with Rey every time she came to the table, accepted the kisses she gave him happily, and watched as the clock ticked down faster than Ben thought was possible. Soon it was closing time and Ben had to face what he'd agreed to. 

Rey was going to go home with him.

Poe came over to him while Rey went into the back to finish what she needed to do. “So? Are you going to ask her or not?”

“Rey is coming home with me,” Ben forced himself to say. “But we are not having sex. I'm not ready for that.”

“You're an idiot,” Poe said, reaching out and smacking Ben on the top of the head. “It's just sex, Ben. I don't know why that requires a lot of thought.”

“It's more than just sex and yes, it requires a lot of thought. The fact that you don't realize that is one of the reasons that you can't get a relationship to last.”

“I can't get a relationship to last because I'm still in love with Zorii,” Poe countered back. “It's got nothing to do with how quickly me and the girl have fucked.”

“Sure it doesn't,” Ben said, standing up when he saw Rey come back into the room. “Will you please leave me alone now?”

“Fine, but stop being an idiot already,” Poe said, smiling at Rey as she came closer to them. “Rey, come over the register with me and I'll get you your tips for the night. Ben can just meet you over there.”

“Alright,” Rey said, giving Ben a brilliant smile that he thought he could live for. “I'll be waiting.”

“I'll be there in a minute. I've got to pay for this anyway.”

“On the house tonight!” Poe called out as he walked away. “And there's no arguing with me on that, Solo.”

Ben shook his head and sighed. “That's really not necessary!”

“Stop being an idiot!”

He closed his eyes for a moment before reaching for the essays, putting them back into his bag and standing up. He reached for his wallet to put some tip money on the table, but then he realized how stupid that would be and instead just kept the money in his hand. He could just hand it to Rey instead.

Poe was just handing over a stack of money to her when Ben got to the register, and Ben held out a couple of bills in his hand. “This too.”

“Ben, that's not necessary,” Rey said.

“You were my waitress, so yes, it is,” Ben said, shaking his hand. “Take it.”

Rey stared at him for a moment before taking the money from his grasp. “Thank you, Ben.”

“You're welcome,” he said, watching as Rey stuck the money into her purse. “Ready to go?”

Rey nodded and Ben turned to say goodnight to Poe, inwardly groaning when he saw the look on Poe's face. “Goodnight, Poe.”

“Goodnight, guys. And Ben? Stop being an idiot.”

Ben turned around and headed for the door instead of saying something stupid in response, and when they were outside the café, Rey reached out and took Ben's hand. “Did you drive here?”

“Yes. I thought maybe I'd be taking you home again.”

“You're the sweetest guy imaginable for thinking of things like that,” Rey said, squeezing his hand. “Alright, where did you park?”

Ben led her to the car and then opened the passenger side door for her, waiting until she was inside before making his way around to the driver's side. He was pulling out of the parking lot before he realized that his hands were shaking, and he forced himself to take four deep breaths. “I'm nervous,” he said without thinking.

Rey let her hand drift over to rest on his knee. “Ben, there's nothing to be nervous about, okay? It's just me spending the night at your place.”

“There's everything to be nervous about. What if I completely fuck this up?”

Rey squeezed his knee. “You're not going to fuck this up, okay? I promise you.”

Ben forced himself to nod, looking over at Rey when he came to a stop at a stoplight. “You really promise that?”

“Yes, I do,” Rey said, squeezing his knee again. “This is going to bring us closer, Ben, not drive us apart.”

Ben swallowed hard. “Then I will try to believe that.”

“You'll see,” Rey replied, smiling at him. “Things will be just fine.”

Ben turned his attention back to the road when the light changed, and Rey started talking about how she hated having to have lunch with her grandfather, even if it was the anniversary. He tried to focus on her words, on the fact that she hadn't moved her hand away from his knee, but he was having a hard time thinking about anything other than fucking things up. 

When they were parked and headed towards his building, Rey reached out and took his hand, and Ben decided that he'd never liked anything more in the world. The elevator ride up to his floor was quiet and then he led Rey down the hall to his apartment. He struggled to get the key into the lock because his hands were shaking, but he got the door open and let Rey walk into the apartment first. 

He turned to lock and chain the door and then took five deep breaths before turning around to face her. “So, this is the apartment. I'm sorry if it's not clean enough.”

“It's cleaner than mine is,” Rey said, smiling at him. “It's nice, Ben. It feels like I just walked into a library and I love that.”

Ben felt a little bit of the tension in his chest loosen. “Yeah, I have a lot of books.”

“There's nothing wrong with that,” Rey said, walking over to him. “Things are fine, Ben. Absolutely fine. And they'll be fine in the morning too.”

Ben nodded and looked over at the clock on the stove. “I, um, I really need to get to bed. I have to be at the university at eight tomorrow.”

“Then we'll go to bed.”

Ben nodded shakily. “The bedroom is this way then.”

He started walking towards it with shaky legs, trying to tell himself that things were fine. It was just sleeping in the same bed. That's all it was. 

When they walked into the room, Rey looked around with a smile. “This looks like a library too.”

Ben laughed slightly. “I told you, I love books more than people.”

“And we're working towards changing that,” Rey said, smiling. “There's nothing wrong with books either. All these bookshelves that you have are gorgeous. I can't wait to explore and see all the books you have on them.”

“You can do that anytime you want,” Ben murmured, taking a deep breath. “Um, are you going to sleep in your dress?”

Rey looked down at her dress and sighed. “I didn't even think about that. Do you have something I could borrow? Like a t-shirt or something?”

Ben felt his heart speed up. “Just a t-shirt?”

“Well, I imagine that any pants you have would be too big for me, but I can just sleep in my underwear and a t-shirt,” Rey said, looking up at him. “Unless that's a problem. If you're uncomfortable, I can just sleep in the dress.”

“It's fine,” Ben forced himself to say. “Let me find one for you.”

He walked over to his closet and began to search through it for the nicest t-shirt that he owned. He pulled it out after he found it, taking it off the hanger and tossing the hanger into the appropriate laundry basket. When he turned back around, Rey had taken her hair down and was struggling with the zipper on the back of her dress. “Would you like some help with that?”

“That would be great,” Rey said, lifting her hair to expose the zipper.

Ben stepped closer to her and slowly lowered the zipper, swallowing hard. He reached out before he could stop himself, slowly caressing the soft skin before him. Rey shuddered slightly as she felt his fingers trail down her back before they abruptly moved away, and she looked behind her to see Ben with wide eyes. “Ben?”

“I'm sorry,” Ben said quickly. “I shouldn't have touched you like that.”

Rey turned around and stared at him for a moment, reaching up and slowly sliding the dress off her shoulders. Ben looked away when she let the dress drop to the floor, closing his eyes to give her the privacy that he thought Rey would want. But Rey didn't want privacy. “Ben, look at me.”

Ben turned back to her and saw her standing there in nothing but what he could describe as lingerie. He let his eyes travel up and down her body before he could stop them, and he took a deep breath. “Rey.”

“You can touch me if you want to, okay? And you don't need to apologize for doing it.”

Ben sucked in another deep breath. “Okay,” he said after a moment. “But I'm not ready for that.”

“And that's fine,” Rey said, reaching out and taking the t-shirt from Ben's hand. “I'll put this on. You get ready for bed.”

Ben blinked a couple of times before turning to look in his mirror. He had to do this. He had to be comfortable with this. It was necessary because that was the way things were going to be that night, and he prayed that he wouldn't make an absolute fool of himself. Then he slowly took his shirt off, reaching for his belt and getting it undone before toeing his shoes off. He took a deep breath before sliding his pants down to the floor, kicking them towards his closet. 

At that moment, he hated the fact that he only slept in his boxer shorts. 

Rey was standing there staring at him when he turned around, and Ben swallowed hard at the look in her eyes. “Hi.”

“You are gorgeous,” Rey said, reaching out to run a hand down his chest. “Absolutely gorgeous and incredibly sexy.”

“I'm really not.”

“You really are.”

Ben closed his eyes and took a couple of deep breaths. “I need to go to bed.”

“Then let's go to bed. Do you sleep on the right side or the left?”

“Left.”

“Perfect.”

By the time that Ben opened his eyes, Rey was pulling back the bedsheets on the right side of the bed and sitting down. He turned the light off and walked over to the left side of the bed and did the same, and then they were laying in bed together. Ben's mind was reeling as he turned onto the side he always slept on, which just made Rey come into view. She was facing him, and they smiled at each other. 

“Goodnight, Ben,” Rey said, leaning over to kiss him.

“Goodnight, Rey,” Ben murmured, and then they both closed their eyes. 

Ben hoped that he'd be able to get some sleep that night.

Rey thought they'd taken a big step in the right direction.


End file.
